Page 2 of Ransom
I reached for the gate latch and stopped. A thousand pounds of mustang at full speed against a boy who weighed maybe a buck fifty soaking wet. There was a version of this where I went over the fence and pulled him out, and there was a version where I letwhat was happening happen, and the second version was what Luis had driven him here for.
I left my hand on the latch and watched.
The boy squared up and met the horse.
Galahad braked at the last second, close enough to send dust over the boy's boots, and snaked his head forward and bit. Got a piece of the shoulder. The boy staggered, caught himself, looked down at the torn shirt and the blood already coming through. Then he grabbed Galahad by the jaw with both hands and bit him back, hard, on the muzzle. Galahad yanked his head away, snorted, and stood there with his ears pricked forward for the first time since I'd brought him home.
I'd bought that horse two years back from a man in Cuba, New Mexico, who'd given up trying to make him into anything. The guy said Galahad had nearly killed three men, and I believed it. Galahad was the meanest horse I'd ever known.
I had been ranching for forty years. I had broken horses and been broken by horses and seen things on this land my mother had warned me I would see. I'd never seen anything like this.
The boy spat dirt and blood and wiped his mouth. "We done?"
Galahad stamped, tossed his head, and swung his hindquarters before coming back for another pass, teeth bared. The boy stood his ground and grabbed and bit, but it didn't stop what was coming. Galahad bit into his arm. Ransom bit him back and repeated the question. "Done yet? Or you got one more in you?"
Galahad backed up and came in slow, neck extended, and the boy stood still and let him. The horse breathed against his torn shoulder and didn't bite. Neither did the boy.
Then Galahad folded his front legs and lowered himself to the ground. He rolled onto his side in the dust and lay there with his ribs rising and falling and his eye on the boy who had come into his territory and answered him in his own language.
The boy dropped to his knees. He put a hand on Galahad's neck, and Galahad turned his head and rested his muzzle against the boy's leg and closed his eyes.
He started shaking in waves and folded over Galahad's neck, forehead pressed into the mane. The horse's blood was still smeared on his face, but when he reached to wipe the blood away, he smeared dirt over his lip. The sound that came out of him belonged to the mothers of lost children, to orphans, to anyone who'd ever buried the last of their kin and survived it.
I stayed where I was and watched over him. The land would keep his grief, and I would keep the boy.
Sierra came up beside me and put a hand on my shoulder. His palm was warm from the kitchen. He smelled like coffee and the cilantro he'd been chopping for dinner and a little like the wood smoke from the morning fire that never quite came out of his shirts. I leaned into him the way I always did, automatic as breathing.
"Well," he said.
"Yeah," I said. "That one's staying."
Sierra was quiet for a moment. Watching the boy and the horse in the dust. Then he said, soft, "You going to tell him what he's staying for?"
"Not today."
"When?"
"When he asks."
Sierra nodded. He'd been here for every one of them. He knew how it worked. The boys came in broken, and we let them be broken for as long as they needed. Then one day they came to the porch and asked the question, and we answered it, and they either stayed or they didn't. None of them had ever not stayed.
Ransom was going to stay. Galahad had already told me so.
I had the Rangerin my scope for a long time before I figured out I didn't want to shoot him, and longer still before I figured out why.
He rode up along the fence line and moved around Judge Roy Castillo's body like he'd done it a hundred times. I tightened on the trigger as he squatted next to it, then eased off.
The Ranger's hat was a genuine Stetson, not some cheap imitation, not some expensive showroom version. A working hat, one that'd seen blood and sweat and dust and come out the other side.
Galahad nosed the back of my neck, and I pushed him away. He'd been up my ass all day, ever since we'd ridden out to check the fence.
Today was Chance's birthday. Galahad didn't know that, but he knew something was off. Horses were like that. Intuitive to a fault.
He nosed me again.
"Fuck off," I muttered and shoved his muzzle gently.
He retaliated by biting the air next to my head.
